and I'm sayin' it here.

Memorial

It is really strange how I came to have so much to do with this memorial for a woman I didn’t really know all that well. I did know her a little and admired her a lot. I will miss her and all that she added to my job in taking care of her daughter. She was immediately cognizant of me and how I was responding to the job – I think she worried about her daughter finding good caretakers. For instance, she was the one who chastised her daughter about not having chairs for “able-bodied” people to sit in at the Ocala house, she was the one who insisted I take her nice car for my day trips to see my parents or my daughter, she was the one who purchased Mary Kay from me in generous amounts whether she needed it or not, she was the one who took my side when things were getting unreasonably difficult. I learned a lot more about her today from the speakers at her memorial. She was Martha Stewart before there was a Martha Stewart. One story I loved was about a luncheon that she put on for a group of people. Her house was beautiful, all the food was homemade, all the appointments were perfect, and when someone admired her plates and asked where she had gotten them, it turned out she had made them too, in her basement on her pottery wheel. For years she was on tv and radio with a cooking/homemaking themed show that she did herself for the Egg Commission. I had a few conversations with her about her faith as well and she was very open about her love of God and her journey in following him. I would have enjoyed being her friend and feel a sense of loss having only known her a short time.

The service was in the Pinehurst Tea Room in Stockbridge Georgia – lovely place. It was done in a style that did credit to all that she stood for. I got to help type up the bulletins and get them printed, get the slide show ready for the computers and start them up, and brought a keyboard to play for several hymns which everyone sang. My employer loves harp music so she had hired a harpist to play and sing for us and she did a wonderful job – I enjoyed playing the hymns with her too. It’s over now and we are resting back at the hotel. So, I just have to say I appreciated the time I had with M. R. S. , and I hope to see her again some day in a better place.